Brother Dear Brother (Oniisama E in the original Japanese) is an anime series centering around a young teenage girl named Nanako who tests into a prestigious all-girls school. When Nanako is subsequently inducted into Seiran Academy’s elite Sorority, she finds herself the target of bullying and slander by her fellow students, who are jealous, angry and bewildered that an unknown with unremarkable looks from a lower-income background was even nominated for candidacy in the first place. Not the best start to her first year at a new school! In addition, Nanako’s longtime friendship with her childhood companion Tomoko is threatened by the scheming Mariko, an intense black-haired beauty who wants to make Nanako hers alone.
The series is non-episodic and continuous, episode building on episode as old issues resolve themselves only to be replaced by new ones. There is much to trouble Nanako during this difficult year of high school, from maintaining the high grades mandated by the Sorority to handling the needy Mariko, from doubts about her own parents’ marriage to astonishment at the strange and sometimes frightening behavior of Sorority president Miya-sama. Nanako also finds herself increasingly fascinated with the mysterious Saint Juste, an older girl to whom she has become strongly attracted….
What is behind Saint Juste’s love-hate relationship with Miya-sama? Why did Miya-sama want Nanako in the Sorority? And just what is Misaki Aya’s problem, anyway? Nanako writes about all of these things and more in her letters to her “Dear Brother.”
Oniisama E was adapted by Akio Sugino and Osamu Dezaki from Riyoko Ikeda’s classic manga of the same title (published in the mid-seventies) and originally aired in Japan from ’91-’92. It consists of 39 episodes and is a shoujo anime (shoujo=marketed towards women) that can be appreciated by anybody who likes complex, fascinating, well-developed characters. The melodramatic elements are accentuated with beautifully rendered stills and repeated actions, while recurring motifs such as the French Revolution, a creepy gargoyle water fountain, a lonely bell tower and a dissonant train signal recur hauntingly throughout. Oniisama E is best suited for mature viewers, subject matter including drug addiction, suicidal behavior, obsessive relationships, school violence and overall gothic intensity.
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Main Characters:
Nanako Misonoo.
Nanako is the main character and the “narrator” through whose eyes we see events unfold. Nanako is a gentle, unworldly and very submissive girl at the beginning of the series who finds herself caught up in intrigue and angst on a level beyond her imagining.
Henmi Takehiko.
Henmi is a university student and Nanako’s former cram school teacher, whom she has asked to be her “brother”: a kind of pen-pal to whom she writes about the various interesting people and events in her life. But there is something Nanako doesn’t know about Henmi….
Tomoko Arikura.
A close childhood friend of Nanako, Tomoko tested into Seiran as well. She is a good-humored oasis of normalcy in Nanako’s increasingly disturbing universe, although her aspirations not to stand out are sometimes tested by the wistful desire that just for once she too could do the “fashionable” thing….
Mariko Shinobu.
Staking Nanako out for her friend on Nanako’s first day of school, Mariko is manipulative, impulsive, possessive and emotionally disturbed. Equally intense in her likes and dislikes, she is characterized by her brash honesty, fierce loyalty to Nanako, love of the Sorority and unreasoning hatred towards men.
Kaoru Orihara.
Kaoru is named for the prince with the heavenly odor from Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji. Androgynously handsome, she is a high school superstar and a whiz on the basketball court. Though the picture of healthy vitality, she has been held back a year due to an unknown illness….
Rei Asaka.
Rei’s fellow students know her by the nickname of Hana no Saint Juste: an allusion to Louis de Saint Juste, the French Revolution’s Angel of Death. Saint Juste is another androgynous high school superstar, worshipped by the student body for her “inhuman” beauty and prodigious musical talent. But behind Saint Juste’s slacker behavior and devil-may-care attitude is self-neglect, a heavy drug addiction, intense personal torment and terrible isolation.
Fukiko Ichinomiya.
Miya-sama is president of both the Sorority and the Seiran student body--a lot of power for one person to hold. Beautiful and proud, she comes of the wealthy Ichinomiya family and is accustomed to having her own way. She also seems to delight in tormenting the subservient Saint Juste, with whom she has a mysterious and disturbing relationship….
Takashi Ichinomiya.
Takashi is Miya-sama’s older brother and a close friend of Henmi Takehiko. Handsome and well groomed, Takashi takes an interest in the man-hating Mariko, even though she treats him with contempt.
Misaki Aya.
The daughter of a rich lawyer, Misaki-san resents Nanako’s acceptance into the Sorority that she expected to get into instead! Misaki leads a vindictive campaign against Nanako and Mariko, rallying the other students against them, digging up dirt on their families and generally making their lives a living hell.Other Characters:
Nanako’s mother is a housewife who wears traditional Japanese house garb and is very close with her husband and daughter.
Nanako’s father is a low-paid university professor. Although not biologically related to Nanako, having married her mother when Nanako was little, he is her father in every other way.
Shinobu Hisako is the mother of Mariko. She often enrages the intemperate Mariko with her passivity in the face of mistreatment from both daughter and husband.
Mariko’s father writes pornography under the penname of “Ishikawa,” a stigma under which Mariko has lived her entire school career.
Furuta Megumi and Sonobe Miyuki are cronies of Misaki Aya.
Nakaya Junko is a Sorority member who is forced to resign after she fails to maintain the grades necessary to remain in the Sorority.
Hayashida and Kiryu are members of the Sorority and close friends of Nakaya Junko.
Hoshino Vampanera, Komabayashi Mona Lisa, Katsuragi Medusa and Ogiwara Borgia are senior members of the Sorority. All have significant names and are individualized characters who respond in individualized ways when their special Sorority privileges are threatened.
Nanako’s English teacher is a minor character worthy of special note. Bewildered and generally in the dark, he continues to educate his students in the fine nuances of the English language, even in the midst of hysteria.
Episode Guide
1. The Magnificent Ones
2. The Glass Slippers
3. Nanako Is Disqualified
4. The Music Box
5. Thorns Of Suspicion And Doubt
6. Lost And Alone
7. The Darkness In The Clock Tower
8. I Want You
9. Relapse!
10. Mariko
11. Under The Elm Tree
12. The Scar
13. A Tale Of Double Suicide
14. The Secret Door
15. Fukiko; The Sea Rumbles
16. Comeback
17. Post Scriptum
18. Into The Dream…
19. The Utakata Game
20. The Gardening Shears
21. The University Fair
22. A Summer’s Serenade
23. The Forbidden Gift
24. Encore
25. The Scarlet Lipstick
26. The Promise In The Snow
27. An Incident Of Bloodshed
28. The Christmas Candles
29. The Assembly
30. The Petition
31. The Bad Apple
32. Pride, And The Final Meeting
33. Fly High
34. Ablution
35. The Beach Of Dreams
36. Glowing Fireflies, Blazing Passion
37. Carousel
38. Yes
39. A Lingering Fragrance
Favorite quotes:Miya-sama: (interviewing Nanako for the Sorority) Who is your favorite author?
Nanako: (thinks, Good. She may not be upset anymore.) Saint Exupery who wrote The Little Prince and Montgomery of Anne of Green Gables!
Random voice: (amused) The Little Prince?
Random voice: And Anne?
Random voice: Like a little kid!
Nanako: (thinks, Oh no, they thought it was too childish! Well, let’s see, umm…) De Sade! I also like De Sade!
Borgia: (astonished) The Marquis de Sade?
Vampanera: Of sadism and masochism?
Medusa: Wonderful! Which one do you prefer?
Nanako: Ummm…ummm…
Random voice: (delighted) Say sadism!
Random voice: She’s perverted!
Random voice: Sadism!
Random voice: Weird!
Random voice: That’s fine. She is liberal…
~
Furuta: (snobbishly commenting on Nanako’s Sorority induction) Yes, it’s amazing.
Sonobe: There were nineteen candidates.
Furuta: Every one of them is superior to Misonoo-san.
Mariko: (bristling, defending Nanako) You miserable potato heads!
Misaki: What?
Mariko: Want me to say it again? Potato heads!
Misaki: It’s still true what I said!
Mariko: Go away! This is none of your business!
Misaki: I’ll not forget this. (to Nanako) I’ll protest directly to Miya-sama! You didn’t even attend the party!
Mariko: Ah-ha! How is it YOU know that? I’ll tell you how. Because it was you who made the phony call, pretending to be Miya-sama!
Misaki: I don’t know anything about that!!
Mariko: It’s you that plays dirty! That alone disqualifies you!
Misaki: And I’d never tolerate you as a member anyway. (exits with Furuta and Sonobe)
Mariko: Hmph! Well! Let’s go, Misonoo-san.
Nanako: (troubled) Ok….(leaves with Mariko)
Kaoru: (looking on from the school garden, where she is standing over Rei) That’s the problem…Every year we have our arrogant lady, Miya-sama, playing her games with the hearts of the freshman. I don’t like this. Do you agree?
Rei: (sits toying with a flower, says nothing)
Kaoru: Well, you don’t really care, do you, Rei?
Rei: (drops the flower, stands and walks away)
~
Kaoru: There are times when you have to endure undeserved slander.
Nanako: You don’t understand.
Kaoru: No one truly understands another…but someone who cares can try to, anyway.
Favorite images:
~ The Lauderdale
Comments:An intelligent, well-executed series praiseworthy for its stylish animation, perfect scoring and beautifully cast voice actors. Brother Dear Brother’s greatest accomplishments, however, are its fascinating depictions of character interaction and excellent character development. Nobody is quite what she or he seems, and viewer assumptions are repeatedly blown out of the water. I am not a fan of melodrama and Brother Dear Brother definitely falls under that category, but the show quickly becomes addictive and I was unable to help becoming attached to characters like Mariko and Tomoko, Kaoru and Saint Juste, even the wretched Misaki. A fabulous, undeservedly obscure series that I heartily recommend.
~ The Lauderdale
Favorite links:Caro Fratello
The TechnoGirls’ Brother Dear Brother page
~ The Lauderdale
This page created by The Lauderdale Images courtesy of Susanna, Marie Kelly and the TechnoGirls
